A technique for detecting an abnormality of a load on a head provided on a disk apparatus has been developed. The abnormality is, for example, a short-circuit of a read terminal connected to the head or a short-circuit of a write terminal connected to the head.
Meanwhile, an increase in the number of terminals mounted on the head causes a reduction in the distance between a plurality of terminals of a flexible printed circuit (FPC) connected to the terminals mounted on the head apparatus. This possibly may result in contact failures which occur in the circuit elements provided in the head apparatus and also between the plurality of terminals provided on the FPC.